Only 18 percent of survey respondents strongly believe that climate change is real, human-caused and harmful.
Yes you read that correctly, it is all in this article on the Nature Conservancy webpage. And that goes along with what was discovered in June this year by the newspapers UK Guardian and Observer, which reported that:
The majority of the British public is still not convinced that climate change is caused by humans – and many others believe scientists are exaggerating the problem…
The Nature Conservancy story citing 18 percent, is citing the American Climate Values Survey (ACVS), conducted by the consulting group EcoAmerica It also found that political party affiliation is the single largest indicator as to whether people see climate change as a threat.
It seems it is all political, as there are some other fascinating tidbits. For example:
- Convinced it’s happening: 54 percent of Republicans, 90 percent of Democrats.
- Think that weather has gotten more severe: 44 percent of Republicans; 77 percent of Democrats.
- Noticed the climate changing: 54 percent of Republicans; 84 percent of Democrats.
- Trust Al Gore when he talks about global warming: 22 percent of Republicans; 71 percent of Democrats.
- Trust environmentalists who talk about global warming: 38 percent of Republicans; 71 percent of Democrats.
- Trust anyone who talks about global warming: 39 percent of Republicans; 75 percent of Democrats.
h/t to Tom Nelson
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Been rather shocked by the shooting of the messenger and gave it a run, here.
http://staywarmworld.wordpress.com/
“We have to get rid of the Medieval Warm Period.”
I think if we could poll it, the most statistically significant divide between AGW and non-AGW would be between “heads/PR managers of scientific institutions” and “ordinary scientists” – that is, assuming we can make this poll anonymous so that those declaring themselves scientific skeptics don’t get tarred and feathered and whatever.
Any thoughts on how to set up such a poll?
Dr Richard North posted his own opinion about the cold weather now starting in the USA.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2008/10/let-it-snow.html
My view is that, whilst weather is technically NOT evidence of long term climate change, as the cientists here will attest; the citizens of parts of America and Canada will be waking up to weather that will give even the most rabid believer in AGW, real pause for thought. If McCain were to stand up and say that so-called the chosen one, just wants to tax Americans in order to cool down the planet, I reckon he’d do OK at the polls.
Of course. I doubt McCain’s actually that smart. although he was smart enough to pilot a warplane, which I could not do! Still, smart is, as smart does! Different tricks for different ponies. I just wish McCain were smart enough in the right area, but so far, there’s no evidence of that.
Perry
“This is so easy to understand I don’t see why people don’t get it” – Pamela
Because it is wrong. Seductively wrong. It is the path to poverty, and you simply ignore, like Obama, that it has been tried so often in the past, failing every time. Not to mention that you are repeating lies about taxation that Obama repeats so often, I am sure it sounds like truth to you. They are designed that way, to appeal to your resentment and self interest. This argument is pointless though. It seems the country has chosen to relive the Carter years. See you on the other side, and I am pretty sure that there will be millions more newly minted Republicans there who will have seen, as I saw after voting for Carter twice, that your arguments are designed to get people elected, not to promote the general welfare.
I am a member of a wine club here in Australia. Follow the link below. It makes it clear to anyone with half a brain that there are indeed proxies for temperature that have a long written record showing true climate change over the centuries. Long before CO2 was belched out by humans.
It is amazing where “sceptics” pop up.
https://www.nicks.com.au/ProductDetail.aspx?ProductId=481075
Thin King Man – nice version of nirvanah but unfortunately in the real world there are no free markets, as has been recently shownly once again and almost everyone lives in a state where the state interferes.
I assume you are not posting from Ethiopia and have no wish to move to such an idyllic stateless place ?
Regards
Andy
oops sorry, meant Somalia !
Regards
Andy
andyw35 (04:14:30) That’s a pretty poor argument, there. Tell me some more about the real world?
======================================
Around 1985 there was a ridiculous movie called “Red Dawn” where the Communist paratroopers invaded Colorado. Turns out that the only things wrong were the time frame and their mode of transport. They actually arrived by bus – this week.
andyw35 (04:14:30) Basically you are a thief. You’ve rationalized and internalized the arguments so you miss the point. And when you depend upon the government to do your thieving for you, you’ve become a slave. Nice state you’re in.
===============================================
Cough, Cough: Ahem, isn’t this a getting a bit off-topic? – Dee
Pamela,
So many of your ideas are…well…frankly, they’re upside down, and there are so many, it’s like swatting flies at a stable.
I’ll take just one (or maybe two…).
The miner:
The reason this analogy is flawed is that your miner was, in fact, creating money. He was NOT at the bottom of the economic ladder within his town, he was creating the very thing that the economic environment he was in required. The “gummint” didn’t take gold away from people who had already earned it, and go out and plant the gold in the mountains and streams for the poor worker at the bottom of the ladder to go out and find. It was never anyone else’s money that they had earned, and the gummint took it away from them.
“Rich people hiding money away in 401ks”:
What do you think happens to that money? It’s invested in funds, stocks…in companies, large and small, that use that money for growth, R&D, development, expansion…all of which create JOBS.
Small businesses:
In my state, Massachusetts, small businesses are folding up shop left and right. Why? At least two reasons right now. First, the “gummint” taxes the bejeezus out of ’em. This means that in order for them to be profitable they would have to charge so much for their goods that people can’t afford them.
Second, those that actually DO have some money left at the end of the week here are afraid that we’ll need that money, because our company may be next, so we’re not going out to dinner as much, we’re not buying that nice new car, and we’re going camping instead of flying to Disney Land.
You keep saying it’s so simple, you don’t understand why people don’t understand it.
I understand perfectly what you are saying…it’s just wrong.
Jim
Jim, I agree with you. Anyone netting taxable income under $250,000, such as the vast majority of small businesses, should be given a tax break. So we agree. Do you agree that the tax break must be balanced so as not to continue our spiraling debt? I’ll bet you want the government to stop spending so much of our money. I do. They certainly spent a lot of it over the last 8 years.
“Climate variability, that is, the departure from average growing season temperatures, results in vintage variability ”
I may have mentioned this book before, but in his classic study of climate variability in Western Europe __Times of Feast, Times of Famine__ the great French historian Emmanuel LeRoy Ladurie depends heavily on vintage records from western Europe starting, as I remember, with the mid-thirteenth century.
This is all fascinating stuff, but a bit off topic no? Remember
Holy Crap!
We’ve been having a debate between Keynesian and Trickle Down economics…. and I missed it?
So, we’re in the majority. But, why aren’t the politicians getting the message? People don’t care enough, I guess. I, for one will be crossing party lines (I’m still a Dem), and voting for John Sununu here in NH, who will probably lose to former gov. Jeanne Shaheen. Obama will get my vote, but mainly because McCain is also on the AGW bandwagon, and because I question his mental capacity and judgement. Palin looks to have been a big boo-boo on his part.
oh my seen this?
So, almost all of the bears visiting Churchill are in really good shape (around ten to twelve in buggyland right now). This seems to have translated through the larger population with 266 polar bears being counted on the fall aerial survey in September. This is the largest number of bears recorded in the history of this survey. Isn’t that crazy?!? Life is good for the bears!
http://tomnelson.blogspot.com/2008/10/churchill-area-fall-aerial-survey-found.html
Hey Fatbigot. While you complain about the cost of government subsidies of windmills and windfarms costing a trivial few billion dollars/pounds (now that the two currencies are about to reach parity) I think you totally miss the external costs of an oil based economy. A few billion is peanuts compared to the two to three trillion dollars/pounds Paul Craig Roberts (Reagan’s Assistant Treasury) claims that our wars for oil cost us (not including those other trivial things like human lives).
I would have gladly suffered through the cost of a few billion rather than have the cost of the trillions we are now facing.
@davidgmills (10:41:50) :
Most of the electricity in the US and the UK is from coal fired plants, so wind turbines will do nothing to decrease the consumption of oil.
The electric grid needs to be kept in balance between supply and demand, so if we are to use the infrequent (wind blows less then 33% of the time) electricity generated by wind turbines, we have to shut down another generation source to compensate.
Coal, Nuke and Oil fired plants need to keep the boiler hot regardless if the steam-driven turbine is spinning (it takes 9-12 hrs to fire up a boiler), so when the wind turbines spin up in a breeze, the boiler-based plants don’t just stop using fuel.
So instead of stopping the steam-turbines in boiler generation plants, they shut down hydro-electric generation or gas-turbine generation when the wind blows.
Therefore your argument that it would be better to spend a few billion on wind turbines than have spent trillions on an ‘oil’ war is now falsified as the consumption of oil would not have significantly changed regardless of the number of wind turbines installed.
Jim B.
Have you ever even had a small business? Because you are clueless. I have had my own for twenty-five years. If small businesses are going out of business, it is not because they are being taxed too much; it’s because the economy sucks and they don’t have any business.
And the enemy of the small business is the Republicans who love monopolies and give all the tax breaks to the big businesses, no-bid contracts to big business, and who love to let the small guys pay an unproportionately large share of the taxes . Even with the unequal taxes small business pays compared to its big counterparts, small business can still make it when the economy is sound. But the economy is not sound.
The reason the economy is not sound is because the government let the big guys go totally unregulated and let big business corruption thrive. If you haven’t figured out that Republicans only care about the giant corporations (and their executives and large shareholders) and could care less about competitive small businesses, you obviously haven’t ever been a small business owner. All I ever wanted was a fair chance to compete; what I don’t like is when the government gives the big boys all the breaks, gives them the no-bid government contracts, makes them pay no income or property taxes and then tells me I have to compete. Monopolistic practices never produce a sound economy.
Poor regulation produces monopolies. Poor regulation kills competition because it allows economic power to dominate the marketplace and drive out competition. The founding fathers understood this well. Too bad we seem to have forgotten. It is the monopolistic practices run amuck that have been the downfall of small business and the killer of our economy.
You would think that people would know better than to turn a science forum into a financial forum, but obviously some do not. So I am not going to sit idly by and let cheap shots go unanswered by those who insist on making this a financial forum.
That’s a utilitarian argument which, as we’ve witnessed these past 100 years, cannot withstand the onslaught of neo-Marxist and Keynesian attacks.
Yes. I was not directly addressing the moral issue.
But I’ll throw this one out: God Bless the Gap.
The blessed gap between rich and poor. The gap that keeps (very poor) me from starving!
When did the gap between rich and poor INcrease? Well, lets’ see. The Glory that was Greece. The Grandeur that was Rome. The Rennaisance. The Enlightenment. The Industrial Revoution. The Postindustrial Society. The Information Age.
When did the Gap between rich and poor DEcrease? The Sack of Rome. The Dark Ages. The Black Death. The Mongol Hordes. The Panic of 1837. The WWI recessions. The Great Depression.
During which of these periods did the poor make out the best? The worst?
Speaking on behalf of my fellow-poor, God Bless the Gap! And long may it widen!
“The rich get richer and the poor get poorer” is one of the Big Lies of history. When did THAT ever happen?
Okay, I so cop to utility. I can EAT utility!
(P.S., don’t get me wrong. I also agree with your moral argument!)
evanjones,
I am always impressed with your common sense take on things.
Thanks,
Mike
davidgmills
If you are right, then why is a huge majority of small business owners voting Republican?
And looking at the big bankrupt investment banks that precipitated the current crisis, I’d say they were the big donors for the DEms and Obama. Shall we provide a list for you?
Do you agree that the tax break must be balanced so as not to continue our spiraling debt? I’ll bet you want the government to stop spending so much of our money. I do. They certainly spent a lot of it over the last 8 years.
No! Yes!
You are conflating two issues–revenues and expeditures.
Any tax “break” will INcrese revenues. It doesn’t HAVE to be “paid for”. It more than pays for itself. Yes, cut taxes on small businesses. YES, cut taxes on Big Business. Yes, cut taxes for the middle class. Yes, cut taxes on the rich!
As for overspending, the only way we will be able to afford it is by (drumroll) cutting taxes. At any rate, the deficit is a lower percentage than under Regan (and screw absolute amounts–percentages are the only meaningful measure). And with our triumph in Iraq (fer it or agin it, it is what it is), defense costs will go ‘way down on their own without even cutting the actual military.
But, yes, congress needs to show more restraint. (I’m not counting on it.)
Mike: Thanks. Just trying to make common sense a little more, well, common.
JimB makes the essential point regarding “401ks of the Rich”. In the old days, the rich buried their money in the back yard. But today, they use it to fuel the economy. (And hire poor schlubs like me!)